Inclusive commemoration of Holocaust victims in Głodno

events Programme

In November, the Zapomniane Foundation team, together with local partners, carried out a green commemoration of the grave and forest hideout in the town of Głodno (borough of Łaziska). Thanks to cooperation with (for) landscape architect Natalia Budnik, we marked the location of the dugout/burial with plants so that it would fit into the local landscape. There were at least several hideouts in the forest near Głodno and Niedźwiada Mała, where both Jews from nearby towns and those who came here from afar tried to survive the Holocaust. According to the information we have, the hideout that we commemorated together with the local community on November 14, 2024 was occupied by escapees from the ghetto in Opole Lubelskie. The hideout was probably discovered in the spring of 1943, during a German raid, and the 10 people hiding there, including women and men, including a mother with an adult daughter, were murdered and buried right next to the place that was supposed to be their shelter.

The commemorative ceremony in Głodno was the culmination of several years of cooperation with the local community. In 2020, we met with the Mayor of the Łaziska Commune and representatives of the forest district, with whom we talked about commemorating this location and established cooperation. The local authorities and the forest district were involved and engaged in the entire preparatory and conceptual process of the commemoration project.

In 2021, we conducted workshops with an intergenerational group of Łaziska residents in the Communal Library and Cultural Center in Łaziska, with whom we made a wooden marker. This year, just before the ceremony, we met with the residents of Łaziska again and in the same place, among them people who remember the meeting from three years ago.

On November 14, 2024, during the unveiling ceremony of the monument/tombstone, together with the local community, we commemorated 10 people of Jewish nationality. The ceremony was attended by residents, youth and teachers from four nearby schools, representatives of institutions, local and regional authorities and the clergy, the rabbi, bishop and parish priest of Łaziska, representatives of the Volunteer Fire Department.

The monument, which on one side is a matzevah and on the other a historical plaque, was designed by architect Piotr Michalewicz from the Formy Wspólne Foundation.